Upon Leaving the Gallery
by Urgeo
Summary: V's initial perspective as he leaves the Gallery and meets Evey for the first time. Inspired by the movie. Apologies for the short summary but it is my first story so this is quite new; rated T just to be ultra safe. Thanks.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing of V for Vendetta, Shakespeare, Warner Brothers or the original graphic novel. This is simply the work of a fan.**

**This is also my first fiction so any reviews greatly appreciated! **

I sit before the mirror in my Shadow Gallery with the knowing, everlasting smile of my Fawksian mask glinting at me in the soft light. Tonight is the night. Tonight is the night that everything changes. My plans are in order and all is arranged and yet, the glint in the eye of my metallic facade confides in me that something on which I had not counted will both fulfil and alter my plans beyond my measure.

The insidious, self-righteous polemic of Commander Prothero screams from my television set. Television. Both the lock and key of our newest society. Norsefire uses it to enslave the somnambulists sat in front of that glowing Pandora's box; bludgeoning them senseless with statistics and fear of the latest threat from disease, war or the 'other'. I intend to open that Box, use it to jolt the masses into something at least resembling action, to use it to show them... But that is for later: this is simply the first act of my Jacobean Revenge Tragedy.

I smooth my perfect hair and check the mask for perfection and my Vaudevillian visage smiles its approval. Which shall I play tonight? The victim or the villain? The curve of my masked lips betrays no solution; after all, "one may smile and smile and still play the villain". Shakespeare knew how to construct a tragedy with its feet planted firmly in revenge; _Hamlet_ is my personal favourite. Justice took leave of Elsinore and saw the young Hamlet on his own vendetta for vindication. That reminds me: I must be getting along; I would hate for Madame Justice to believe that I had failed to follow through our arrangements on tonight of all nights!

Prothero's mechanical propaganda begins to wear thin as I pull on my boots. Governments controlling through fear and hatred is not the wonderful world Madame Justice promised me. Still, that is what I am here for! Finally it's time. With the television mercifully silenced and with my cloak fastened close about me and the armoury of my vindication strapped safely to me I leave my shadowed sanctuary into the streets of London.

My darling London. I remember you before the times of strife and insecurity. I do not blame you for crawling into bed with High Chancellor Sutler for protection; you were scared and alone and confused after war and disease had left you vulnerable and victimised. I will show you there is another road, another path with a much brighter vista at the end. The damp in the air betrays your emotions as you weep your silent vigil of the vanished brighter days of yore.

I wish I could still here your vibrant heartbeat; unwavering as you stood for what was good about the world. Instead, all I hear is my own leaden footsteps, the sound swallowed by your gloom and misery.

What was that? A shout... A call for help... A female voice reverberating in the gloom and my footsteps falter. I know the path that I want to take; I know the path that I should take unerringly towards my night's ambition and yet I cannot walk away. After all, what is the use of a masked vigilante if I cannot rescue the damsel in distress! My feet guide me to the calls and there, in the gloom of a London backstreet, urged on by Norsefire's printed cries of "Strength through unity" is a young woman, struggling against her captors who hide behind their mask of virtue and law.

"The multiplying natures of villainies do swarm upon him disdaining virtue with his brandished steel, which smoked with bloody execution". They are dispatched with in no time and my concern turns to the girl. She asks me my name and I rather enthusiastically inform her of my identity as opposed to _who_ I am. She questions my sanity; I know that many more will do the same. It is with one word that she disarms me. Her name. With that small arrangement of letters I see my future spread out before my feet, the dominoes fall in their perfect pattern. With that one name I know that the future for which I fight, for which I seek my vengeance belongs not to me but to her. Our fates are entwined from this moment; unalterably, irrevocably joined like the point at the bottom of the letter V: different directions but declaring the same message.

"I'm Evey."  
"Of course you are."


End file.
